Novak Djokovic

Tennis Champ

By Bill SaporitoWednesday, Apr. 18, 2012

Matthew Stockman / Getty Images

Novak Djokovic became the world's third-ranked tennis player on July 9, 2007. For the better
part of the next four years
he was the sport's top doormat. First Roger Federer and then Rafa Nadal would regularly wipe their feet on him en route to major titles;
nine times they stomped
him in Grand Slam events.

Djokovic's renowned sense of humor  he's
a great mimic of his fellow pros  must have helped him. But while he yukked it up, he also upped
his training regimen and refined his exquisite baseline shotmaking. No one has a more lethal backhand down the line. He got mentally tougher too. Last year Djokovic reached No. 1 in dominating fashion, winning at the Australian Open, Wimbledon
and the U.S. Open and dispatching both nemeses. He started
2012 by beating Nadal in a five-set, nearly six-hour epic for the Australian title. "It's the result
of the really hard work
that I put into it," says Djokovic, 24, now
a national hero in his native Serbia.

Djokovic's tennis
hero is Pete Sampras, a serve-and-volley maestro who spent a record
286 weeks as top gun. Djokovic recognizes
that the game today is different  more
baseline power and speed, less touch. And with Nadal and Federer hounding him, staying No. 1 will be difficult. But having worked for years to get there, he'll enjoy every moment of it.